United States President Donald Trump has on Thursday threatened to impose tariffs over Mexican automobiles and shut the southern border along with Mexico within one year, if the country fails to stop “massive amounts of drugs” entering into the US.
According to ANI news reports, Trump was quoted as saying, “We’re going to give them a one-year warning, and if the drugs don’t stop or largely stopped, we’re going to put tariffs on Mexico and products, in particular, the cars … and if that doesn’t stop the drugs, we close the border.”
Trump has last week said he would close the US-Mexico border “or large sections of it” in the coming week if Mexico fails to stop “illegals” (migration flow) coming from Central America, through Mexico, and entering the US.
The US president has also noted Mexico has made progress in recent days in “capturing people and bringing them back to their counties at their southern border”.
During the inaugural meeting of the White House opportunity and revitalization council, Trump said, “A lot of good things are happening with Mexico. Mexico understands that we’re going to close the border or I’m going to tariffs the cars. One or the other, probably start off with the tariffs. That’ll be a very powerful incentive because Mexico has the strongest immigration laws anywhere in the world.”
The Pentagon has earlier this week notified the US Congress that it has allocated USD 1 billion for the construction of the US-Mexico border wall.